Be careful Out There...PayPal Users Hit With Another Scam

Posted this morning on Yahoo News

Another Internet scam that targets online shoppers who use the EBay PayPal payment service is circulating, according to reports from those who have received the suspicious e-mail and to messages posted to online discussion groups.

History
• PayPal Users Targeted by E-Mail Scam--Again

PayPal did not respond to requests for comment.

The e-mail appears to come from "[email protected]" and has a subject line that reads "Your PayPal account is Limited." The body of the message reads, in part: "PayPal is currently performing regular maintenance of our security measures. Your account has been randomly selected for this maintenance, and placed on Limited Access status."

Recipients are asked to provide their PayPal account information, credit card number, and bank account number using a form in the body of the e-mail message. A button is provided to "log in" to PayPal's site and update the information.

The message is designed to look like it was generated by PayPal, using graphics from the PayPal Web site as well as fonts and colors similar to legitimate PayPal correspondence. A boilerplate statement about receiving notifications is even supplied at the end of the message, with links to PayPal that allow the recipient to modify their notification preferences.

"It was formatted really nicely. It had the right colors for the PayPal site and there weren't any obvious grammar mistakes," said Karawynn Long, a writer and Web designer in Seattle who received one of the apparent scam e-mail messages. Long was almost fooled by the message into entering her account information.

"The subject of the e-mail was odd. But it was early in the morning. Pre-coffee," Long said.

I just got this today.
Thanks for the heads up.

This is the same old scam that's been around for awhile. Yahoo is just slow to pick up on it.

Damn, criminals are so smart. If they could only use their know how for good. They probably never even tried coming up with a legitimate money making idea. My personal favorite is check washing. They go around and steal mail out of your mail boxes then they dip your checks in a solution that takes off the hand writen ink only.
Then simply fill in the blanks in any amount and any name.

Here's another one for ya.

You can "knock" toner off of a page by freezing it. Most corporate checks are printed with toner. The account information at the bottom of the check is protected from this process because it is a magnetic ink and not toner.

Or you could steal the check and simply use the account information via the web to pay bills. You can actually pay your Sprint phone bill via the web by keying in the routing and account number of someone elses bank account. Sprint has no way to verify that it is actually your account until the real owner catches the amount.

There are many ways to defraud people these days especially with the advances in technology. The void watermark that reveals itself when you make a photocopy is invisible when you use a color scanner.

The bottom line is to relentlessly protect yourself and your information.

[ Edited by: Monkeyman on 2003-11-05 09:57 ]